Cut flowers remind us beautiful things need to be nurtured. They need attention. They need a lovely place to live.

God made some flowers to be cut and shared as bouquets. Not everything has to stay rooted in the ground. Sometimes a lovely thing can give up it's roots and go where beauty is needed but cannot grow. Like in the winter. Like in the city. Like in a kitchen.

Cut flowers. In my relationships, in my family, some things are still rooted. Some are cut flowers. They need more from me, and they give, in return, so much beauty and love.

They don't just get cut to die. They get cut to die beautifully, and as we care for them we understand love, care, grace, peace and surrender. We have to let them go back to the soil at some point. That is their sacrifice.

This is not altogether different from the sacrifice of Jesus is it? He left Heaven to come here, cut off from His home, His place with God. He came for us. His sacrifice was the greatest of all. And he did it freely. For us.

I will never look at cut flowers the same way again.

(I am doing the Respect Dare with some wonderful ladies. I thank God for them!)